Hi Guys
I normally do a weekly scan on Norton every Thursday and I am used to it coming up in the bottom right saying Norton is performing background tasks.
But while performing the scan today I noticed the notification pop up in the bottom right then disappear straight away which I found strange.
After the scan completed I decided to wait it out a little longer to see if it would perform the idle time but it didn’t. So I decided to make the idle time shorter and toned it down to 5 mins rather then 10 mins and still no luck of it coming up (I performed a restart after changing the setting to 5 mins)
I’m not sure why it is doing this for the rest of the week if I went away from my computer I’d come back and see it so I don’t know what makes today any different? Also if I go to the performance flip over tab it says that a quick scan ran today which I find quite strange too!
Maybe I’m just over reacting but still
Windows 8.0 N360 version: 21.2.0.38
Any info would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks a lot 
Hi AA1,
The notification popup appears when N360 is performing idle background tasks but not when performing an idle quick scan.
Idle background tasks could be Norton Community Watch, Norton Insight, AntiSpam maintenance, Licencing maintenance,Product maintenance and others.
The reason why the popup instantly disappeared is either because you moved the mouse cursor and the idle timer was reset, or a Windows background service trigerred and also reset the N360 idle timer.
If the Performance tab shows current dates for idle background tasks, then it is expected behavior and I wouldn't worry at all.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
I’m not sure when the quick scan ran but it ran today at some point maybe after or during the full system scan but either way it ran!
And I think your right about a windows task stopping it from working because the disk defrag kept triggering and I believe that may have stopped it.
Either way I times 5 mins and sooner or later it popped up. I’ve checked Norton tasks and all the greyed out ones have been done today so I’m guessing all is well.
Thanks for the help!
Have a great afternoon/evening
Take care
Hi AA1,
If you wish, you can set the idle timer to 2 minutes, so when a new set of virus defs is downloaded, you wait 2 extra minutes for the idle quick scan to start and upon completion you continue your pc activities.
This is what I usually do but I have also Auto LU set to off.
Also, it would be better if you disable the automatic defragmentation of Windows partitions and perform this task only after installing a bunch of new programs and only on-demand.
Hope this helps too.
Best regards,
Hi Apostolos
I think I’ll leave it at 5 mins because that’s a well rounded time for me!
And the disk defrag just randomly started. It’s done it a view times but then it doesn’t do it again for a while. Not sure why it does that I have automatic disk defrag off but it doesn’t really bother me either way.
As long as Nortons working I’m not concerned!!
Thanks a lot
" And the disk defrag just randomly started. It's done it a view times but then it doesn't do it again for a while. Not sure why it does that I have automatic disk defrag off but it doesn't really bother me either way."
Hi AA1,
How do you know that it was the disk defrag started??
Thanks.
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
I opened up the task manger and I saw and instance of disk defragmenter inside there and when I moved my mouse it canceled it
Thanks a lot
Hi AA1,
Follow this: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/improve-performance-optimizing-hard-drive
and make sure that you have already configured everything correctly.
Normally, if Disk Defragmenter is OFF then it's OFF, it doesn't kick randomly. (Unless there was a major change in W8.1 that I am missing).
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
I have Windows 8.0 not 8.1 so I’m not sure if this refers to me!
Thanks a lot
Hi AA1,
What you described earlier could be the Automatic Maintenance feature of W8.
I do not know if it involves only disk defrag in W8 or extra features.
By the way, the link I posted earlier should apply to W8 too since it's the same OS!
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
I’m going to boot up my system now and look at the website again just to see if things are the same!
And regarding the automatic maintenance I get a notification under the little white flag every month or so, so I’m not sure if it’s that
Thanks a lot
Hi Apostolos
I have booted up and opened optimise drives.
It says under scheduled optimisations Off in bold text and then says drives are not being optimised automatically!
I think I remember seeing some different windows tasks in the task manager so they could of been the reason it started off I’m not too sure.
I’m going to let my system idle for a bit and see if it runs again
Thanks
Hi AA1,
See this also: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848037(v=vs.85).aspx
Looks like Automatic Maintenance is a good candidate to disable and use only on-demand, if Microsoft, in it's infinite "wisdom"
allows it.
Maybe in Task Scheduler too!!
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
Looking at your link this could be a candidate as I said in my last post that other windows tasks were running in task manager!
Thanks a lot
Hi AA1,
This is very funny too!
Good luck with W8!! :-)
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
Thanks for the links!
I think an update for Windows 8.1 may be on the horizon!
I’m leaving my computer to idle for a bit but do you think If it doesn’t happen now I can just rest and ignore it? That’s unless it happens again of course!
Thanks a lot
Best regards
Hi AA1,
From what I understand, W8 comes with 3 types of Auto maintenance, Regular, IDLE and a third that I do not remember.
That's probably why you see from time to time the entry in taskmgr. even if you think you have it disabled!
The problem is that Microsoft should give users the ability to completely control all these according to each one's needs, right??
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
I couldn’t agree anymore!
Having a OS which you have complete control over settings wise would be great! But I think we’ll be waiting a while for something like that!
Thanks a lot for your help!
I’m going to try and forget about this idle task!
Take care
Hi AA1,
In W7, all these tasks are fully customizable via CP & Task Scheduler and the most important is that it works without glitches!
Take care too!!
Regards,
Hi Apostolos
If only I had W7 I’ve always liked that OS if I’m honest to great!
Thanks a lot for the help!
Best regards!